Wannamaker, R. (in press 10/2007).

North American Spectralism: The Music of

James Tenney. In Reigle, R. & P. Whitehead (Eds.), Istanbul Spectral Music
Conference, Nov. 18–23, 2003. Istanbul, Turkey: Pan Yayincilik.

NORTH AMERICAN SPECTRALISM:

THE MUSIC OF JAMES TENNEY

Robert A. Wannamaker

INTRODUCTION

Since 1971, the works of American-Canadian composer James

Tenney have exhibited many of the technical and stylistic earmarks of what
has since come to be called "spectral music.” In particular, his oeuvre
includes very early examples of instrumental music involving orchestrations
of the harmonic series and of pitch relationships derived from it,
“instrumental synthesis” based on spectral analysis, the orchestration of
electro-acoustic sounds, structural concepts derived from acoustics and
psychoacoustics (including Shepard tones, difference tones, harmonic
fusion, and residue pitches), gradual formal processes, and a general
preoccupation with the phenomenology of sound. This paper provides an
introduction to this important and under-recognized body of work, relating it
to an American phenomenological aesthetic descended from John Cage and
Harry Partch. Tenney’s work is considered as representative of a previously
unacknowledged indigenous North American school of spectral music
composition that also includes such composers as Larry Polansky and John
Luther Adams.

1
PRECEDENTS

Among James Tenney’s compositional output since 1971 are over

forty significant works that can properly be regarded as spectral music. His
multifaceted explorations of perception in many ways parallel, in some
instances anticipate, and sometimes interestingly contrast with musical
developments in Europe. This paper considers Tenney’s work and its
influence as representative of a significant and virtually unacknowledged
tradition of spectralist composition whose technical and aesthetic roots are
distinctly North American.
Tenney’s spectralism is the product of a long and complex personal
history reflecting his ongoing interests in both science and music. Born in
1934 in Silver City, New Mexico, his early academic studies included
engineering at the University of Denver (1952–54) as well as piano with
Eduard Steuermann at the Julliard School (1954–55), and composition and
conducting at Bennington College (1956–58) with Lionel Nowak and Henry
Brant, respectively. His compositions from this period betray the influences
of Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Edgard Varèse, as well as a
characteristic pithiness and conceptual clarity.1
In 1961, Tenney earned a Master’s degree in composition from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied composition
with Kenneth Gaburo and electronic music with Lejaren Hiller. His
Master’s thesis, entitled META + Hodos: A Phenomenology of 20th-Century
Musical Materials and an Approach to Form (Tenney 1988 [1964]), applied
principles of Gestalt psychology to the perception of musical forms and has
proven widely influential. During this period, he also played in Harry
Partch’s Gate 5 Ensemble, and Partch’s harmonic theories (Partch 1974
[1949]) have been one inspiration, among others, for Tenney’s own theory of
harmonic perception (Tenney 1993 [1983]).
From 1961–64 Tenney was employed as a member of the technical
staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories (now AT&T Bell Laboratories) in New
Jersey. While there, he composed some of the earliest substantial pieces of
computer music and conducted pioneering research on algorithmic
composition, psychoacoustics, timbre modeling, and computer sound

1
Most of Tenney’s major works completed between 1960 and 1980 receive detailed
examination in Larry Polansky’s book-length analytical study of his music
(Polansky 1983), which still constitutes the single most important scholarly resource
for anyone interested in Tenney’s work.

2
generation, with Max Mathews.2 The detailed technical experience that he
acquired with acoustics, psychoacoustics, spectral analysis, signal
processing, and information theory during this time period has informed
much of his subsequent compositional work, and his spectralist music in
particular.
During this time, Tenney also studied composition privately with
Chou Wen-chung (1955–56) and informally with Carl Ruggles (1956–58),
Edgard Varèse (1956–65), and John Cage (1961–69). Exposure to Cage’s
Zen-related phenomenological attitude towards “letting sounds be
themselves” (Cage 1961) had already made a strong impression on the
young composer before this time. Tenney has said that “... people having
difficulty with 20th-century music are not hearing sound because they’re not
in a frame of mind to simply listen to sound for itself. That’s why Cage is
indispensable ...” (Tenney 1984). In this attitude one finds significant
commonality with the empirical orientation of the psychoacoustician, who
also creates, attends, refines, compares, and contemplates sounds. The
obvious difference is that for a composer such as Tenney the exploration of
sound-as-heard offers not only an opportunity for conceptual refinement but
also an affecting sensuous experience and an avenue to heightened self-
awareness. An attraction, both intellectual and sensuous, to sound as a
phenomenon—to differentiating, experiencing, and appreciating its facets,
and to personally becoming more fully aware of how the perceiving self is
constituted—would bring him to employ spectralist means in the exploration
of timbral and harmonic perception.
During the 1960s, Tenney was peripherally involved in the Fluxus art
movement and was also an original performing member in both the Steve
Reich Ensemble (1967–70) and the Philip Glass Ensemble (1969–70).
While his interest in gradual formal processes precedes his involvement with
these so-called “minimalist” composers (appearing earlier in certain of his
computer music compositions), his work since 1967 has frequently
embraced unidirectional processes of the sort also recognizable in, for

2
Tenney’s recorded musical works from this period are available as James Tenney:
Selected Works 1961–1969, New World Records CD 80570. An analytical survey
of these works is available in (Polansky 1983), a version of which constitutes the
liner notes to the CD release (Polansky 2003). In (Tenney 1969), the composer
himself has published analyses of these works and an account of his time at Bell
Labs. Technical aspects of the research that Tenney conducted on sound synthesis
and timbral modeling there appears in (Tenney 1963), one of the very first
publications regarding computerized sound synthesis directed towards musicians.

3
instance, Reich’s Come Out (1966). In particular, between 1965 and 1971
Tenney composed a series of ten so-called Postal Pieces, which he printed
on postcards in 1971 and sent to his friends. Several of these simple but
very effective little pieces exhibit such gradual unidirectional formal
processes and also bear other proto-spectral features. For instance, Swell
Piece No. 2 from 1971 asks performers to sound A4 (440 Hz), repeatedly
entering dal niente, increasing in intensity, and then fading back out al
niente in a manner rhythmically independent of one another. With sustained
communal concentration, the intonation of the ensemble will progressively
improve so that successively higher harmonics of A4 will begin to ring out,3
encouraging listeners to “hear-out” these partials within the composite
harmonic spectrum.4

EARLY SPECTRAL WORKS

Although Tenney’s Postal Pieces share a phenomenological

orientation and the use of gradual formal processes with the more
paradigmatically spectralist music he soon began writing, his experiences at
Bell Labs in the early 1960s were probably a more direct precedent for this
compositional development. Indeed, his next work was an orchestration of
the Shepard-tone concept. Tenney knew of the associated phenomenon from
his sojourn at Bell Labs alongside cognitive psychologist Roger Shepard—
after whom the phenomenon is named—during the period of time when
Shepard first investigated it.5 In 1969, Tenney had produced an electro-

3
Note that all pitch specifications in this paper follow the Acoustical Society of
America’s pitch designation system, so that A4 is 440 Hz, the pitches in the octave
including and above middle C are C4–B4, and the lowest C on a conventional 88-key
piano keyboard is C1.
4
The reason is that if the fundamental frequencies of two complex tones in a unison
dyad are mistuned by a frequency difference f2-f1, (which will be the frequency of
beating between them) then the n-th harmonics above these fundamentals will be
mistuned by a frequency difference nf2-nf1=n(f2-f1). Thus, once the intonation has
improved sufficiently so that the rate of beating between lower harmonics is no
longer distracting, the beating between relatively higher harmonics becomes
noticeable due to its greater rapidity.
5
A Shepard tone is a collection of sine tones, separated in pitch by octave intervals,
all of which are glissad-ing or stepping upwards together at a common rate in
semitones per second. Each tone is individually subjected to an identical amplitude
envelope such that it gradually “fades in” beginning at some given bass pitch, attains

4
acoustic piece based on the phenomenon entitled For Ann (rising), and in
1971 he undertook an orchestration of that work.

FOR 12 STRINGS (RISING) (1971)

The result was For 12 Strings (rising), scored for two contrabasses,
three cellos, three violas, and four violins.6 In this work each instrument
executes an ostinato consisting of an upwards glissade, but the instrumental
parts are carefully dovetailed in both pitch and dynamic to give the
impression of a collection of overlapping tones smoothly rising more than
five octaves from F1 to A6 and separated by intervals of a tempered minor
sixth.7 The audible effect of the piece cannot be reliably assessed, since it
has never been performed. If the electro-acoustic For Ann (rising) is any
indication of what to expect, then the texture, although physically quasi-
static, will prove audibly complex and unstable as the ear skips between
voices, compulsively creating its own non-deterministic melodies and
counterpoint despite the uniformity of the objective stimulus. For 12 Strings
(rising), while it addresses a specific phenomenon apparently not explored in
other spectralist instrumental works, clearly bears many of the principal
earmarks of spectral music as it is described in the literature (cf. Fineberg
2000). It is, for instance, a deliberate orchestration of a particular spectrum,
undertaken with attention to phenomenology rather than semantics, and
exhibits a process-form and expanded temporal scale that facilitate
exploration of the music as a phenomenon. Furthermore, like many other

a dynamic plateau, and then “fades out” as it approaches a given treble pitch. The
impression imparted to a listener is that of a tone rising continuously in pitch
without getting higher; see (Shepard 1964).
6
Scores for those of Tenney’s works that were composed before 1986 are available
from Smith Publications http://www.smith-publications.com/. Works composed
during 1986 or thereafter are available from Frog Peak Music
http://www.frogpeak.org/ or the Canadian Music Centre
http://www.musiccentre.ca/. As of June 2006, a fairly complete list of Tenney’s
works to July 2002 as well as a discography and bibliography are available on the
World Wide Web at The Living Composers Project,
http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/tenneyj.htm.
7
Note that the outcome differs from a conventional Shepard’s Tone, in which the
interval between sine waves is an octave. In the electro-acoustic For Ann (rising)
this difference results in a correspondingly more complex phenomenon, with
combination tones, beating and ephemeral artifacts audible in the musical
background.

5
spectral compositions, it is an orchestration of electro-acoustic source
material.

CLANG (1972)

Tenney’s next work was Clang for orchestra, of 1972. In addition to

the formal and aesthetic features already observed in For 12 Strings (rising),
Clang exhibits several more that are also characteristic of much other music
described as “spectral.” For instance, it takes the harmonic series as a point
of reference and employs microtonal tunings in order to approximate
intervals within that series. It also applies filtering-like operations to pitch
materials. Finally, a distinctive relationship between pitch sets that is
observable in many purportedly spectralist works is found in Clang.
Suppose that by the term “conceptual fundamental” we refer to the highest
pitch, sounding or not, of which all tones in a given pitch set may be
regarded as harmonics. Then an important structural principal appearing in
Clang involves the use of successive pitch sets whose conceptual
fundamentals progress by octaves. Tenney’s structural use of such
relationships in Clang predates their use by such composers as Gérard
Grisey, in whose music these increases or decreases of the conceptual
fundamental by octaves Françoise Rose (1996) associates with motion
towards “harmonicity” or “inharmonicity,” respectively.
Clang is 15’30” in duration and successively presents two gradual
processes, the first accumulative and the second dissolutive. These are
separated in time by a single fortississimo percussive attack or “clang,” with
similar “clangs” initiating and concluding the piece. The pitch gamut
employed is restricted to the first eight prime-numbered harmonics of an E
fundamental and their octave equivalents, which together constitute a sort of
just-intoned octatonic scale. The intonation of these pitches is approximated
using tempered quartertones.8 The score is divided into 17 sections cued by
the conductor, which indicate different sets of pitches available to the
players using a scheme that the composer dubs an “available pitch process.”
The score to Clang describes the process as follows:
... the notation indicates available pitches to be played by
sustained-tone instruments (including rolls on the percussion
instruments) in the following way: each player chooses, at
8
The demanded accuracy of intonation has increased over the course of Tenney’s
output, stabilizing at an ideal tolerance range of plus-or-minus 5 cents in the mid-
1980s.

6
 random, one after another of these available pitches (when within
the range of his or her instrument), and plays it beginning very
softly (almost inaudibly), gradually increasing the intensity to the
dynamic level indicated for that section, then gradually decreasing
the intensity again to inaudibility ... After a pause at least as long
as the previous tone, each player then repeats this process ...
Here, then, is an important attribute distinguishing Clang and many of
Tenney’s other works from most European spectral music: a post-Cageian
espousal of indeterminacy with regard to certain musical features such as
timbre and texture, albeit carefully constrained so as to ensure that the
resulting variety displays desired aspects of uniformity and evolves in a
deliberate fashion.
The opening accumulative formal process begins from an available
pitch set comprising E4 alone. The compass of this available set expands in
stages, almost as though the bandwidth of an ideal bandpass filter were being
gradually increased to pass more and more frequency components. A
massive dissonant noise-like sonority thus gradually unfolds, its texture and
timbre constantly fluctuating as instruments enter and leave. The expansion
concludes and the second “clang” sounds when all pitches in the just-
octatonic set between E1 and E7 are available.
At this point, the conceptual fundamental of the entire available pitch
set is an infrasonic E-3. The available pitch set in the next section retains
only those pitches regarded as harmonics of E-2, deleting some of the lower
pitches from the available set so that the conceptual fundamental rises by an
octave. The conceptual fundamental is similarly raised by one octave in
each successive section; that is, the fundamental of the available pitch
collection progressively rises so that the texture grows increasingly
consonant and recognizably “harmonic.” This transition from a noise-like
sonority to a tonal (in the sense of “pitched”) sonority provides the large-
scale formal trajectory of Clang’s second half. Pitches in the pitch class E
are treated specially insofar as they are not deleted from the available set, so
that at the music’s close the sounding pitch collection comprises all of the
E’s between E1 and E7. As this conclusion is approached, the highest
sounding pitches become perceivable alternately as discrete tones or as
gradually fluctuating timbral colorations of the lowest sounding E (E1), since
they all coincide with harmonics of this pitch.
Figure 1 shows two successive available pitch sets from the second
half of Clang. For the first set (i.e., in Section 9 of the score) the nominal
fundamental is E-1. In the second set (Section 10), it is E0. Accidentals in
parentheses represent quarter-sharps and quarter-flats. Filled noteheads

7
correspond to pitches that will be deleted from the available pitch set in the
next section, when the conceptual fundamental will be E1.
Like For 12 Strings (rising), Clang was published but never received
a concert premiere, although it was given a promising reading by the Los
Angeles Philharmonic shortly after it was composed.

Figure 1. Two successive available pitch sets from Clang. Quarter-

sharps and quarter-flats are indicated using parentheses. (Copyright
1972 by Sonic Art Editions. Used by permission of Smith Publications,
2617 Gwynndale Ave., Baltimore, Maryland 21207.)

QUINTEXT (1972)

Quintext, also composed in 1972, is a suite subtitled Five Textures for

String Quartet and Bass, of which the first, third, and fifth parts exhibit
spectralist aspects. The fifth, entitled Spectra for Harry Partch, is a
particularly remarkable construction that achieves very precise tuning of
intervals in the harmonic series above F1 using an ingenious system of
scordatura. The bass tunes its E string to this F, then plays odd-numbered
natural harmonics on this string (up to the eighth) to which the other
instruments then tune their open strings. Throughout most of the piece, the
bass plays a drone on this open F, while the other instruments play only open
strings and natural harmonics up to the seventh. In this way, very accurately
tuned harmonics of F1, as high as the 105th, are attainable. Rhythm is notated
proportionally but pitch is fully specified, with increasingly higher

8
harmonics being gradually (but irregularly) introduced over the course of the
piece. The score indicates that tones other than the mezzo forte bass drone
should be very soft, “hovering near some threshold between being heard as
individual tones at all, on the one hand, and being heard simply as
intensifications of some harmonic in the spectrum of the bass’s low F.” The
evolving result is an austere and unearthly textural web—a meditation on the
unstable relationship between pitch and timbral perception as the sounds of
the various instruments alternately fuse and segregate.

SPECTRAL CANON FOR CONLON NANCARROW (1974)

The Spectral CANON for CONLON Nancarrow, completed in 1974, is

a work of singular musical impact and highly sophisticated construction.9
Written for a player piano retuned to sound the first 24 harmonics of A1, it is
a canon in 24 voices. Each voice implacably reiterates just a single pitch
from the given harmonic set while executing a smooth accelerando. The
sequence of time durations between successive attacks is identical in each
voice, but successively higher-pitched voices enter at successively later
times. The sequence of durations between the first attack in a given voice
and successively later attacks in that voice is a logarithmic sequence, just as
the harmonic series is a logarithmic sequence in units of tempered pitch.
Thus, an ingenious isomorphism exists between the pitch and rhythmic
structures of the piece. In fact, a more detailed analysis than is practical here
reveals that the entrance times of the various voices are carefully specified,
so that the temporal pattern of attack-time coincidences between any given
set of voices is identical to the pattern of pitch coincidences between
harmonic partials within the set of tones concurrently attacked.
As successively higher voices enter, they combine in increasingly
complex polyrhythms, eventually resulting in a chaotic maelstrom of sound.
At the instant when the highest voice enters, the lowest voice begins to
retrograde, decelerating. Successively higher voices also begin retrogrades,
but at successively later times. Slowly an unexpected transformation unfolds
in the form of harmonic glissandi sweeping progressively higher in pitch,
and the instrument begins to ring as though sounding a single shimmering

9
The following recordings featuring Tenney’s Spectral CANON are available:
Cold Blue, Cold Blue Music CB0008, compact disc; also Donaueschingen
Musiktage, 1994, col legno WWE 3CD 31882, compact disc; also Musicworks 27
Cassette. A score is available in (Tenney 1976) and Musicworks 27 magazine.

9
harmonic complex (see Figure 2). Just as the lowest voice finishes its
retrograde—at which time it turns out that the highest voice is just about to
begin its retrograde—all 24 voices attack simultaneously for the first time in
the piece, which concludes with this coincidence. Due to the precise
harmonic relations obtaining between the coincident pitches, this final attack
does not sound like multiple voices. Instead, it sounds like a single fused
harmonic tone originating from a sort of “hyper-piano,” which has been
produced by means of additive instrumental synthesis from 24 constituent
piano tones. It is as though the components of this final tone, heard in
separation at the opening of the piece, are forcefully smashed back together
into a unified percept at its conclusion.
One might suppose that correspondences between pitch and
temporal structures would be conceptually attractive to composers of
spectral music seeking means of organizing rhythm. Tenney appears to have
been unique, however, in exploring this compositional avenue. Precedents
for rhythmic analogues of harmonic series relationships can be found in the
works and writings of Henry Cowell (Cowell 1996 [1930]) and Conlon
Nancarrow (Gann 1995), but these composers did not attempt detailed
structural integration of pitch and rhythm. After composing the Spectral
CANON, Tenney went on realizing such integration in other ways, using live
performers in the Three Harmonic Studies (1974) for orchestra, Septet
(1981) for six guitars and bass, and Song ‘n’ Dance for Harry Partch (1999)
for Partch-instruments, strings, and percussion.

10
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Figure 2. The penultimate page of the score to Spectral CANON for
CONLON Nancarrow (redrawn). Vertical lines indicate precise attack-
time coincidences. Note the increasing pitch compass of both the
coincidences between lower voices and the harmonic glissandi that flank

11
them. (Copyright 1974 by Sonic Art Editions. Used by permission of
Smith Publications, 2617 Gwynndale Ave., Baltimore, Maryland 21207.)

OTHER EARLY SPECTRALIST WORKS

Tenney produced several other significant spectralist works around

this time. Among these is the Chorales for Orchestra of 1974, which
presents eight lyrical melodic lines in rhythmic unison moving in parallel
motion over the “just-octatonic” set used in Clang. Each line begins on a
different pitch class of the set so that at any given instant all eight possible
pitch classes are sounding, with changes in the initial voicing and the
instrumentation taking place between sections of the work. Two striking
impressions coexist upon hearing this unique piece: that of lyrical melody
and that of a single modulating spectrum.
Two important but unpublished works also date from 1974. The
Orchestral Study bears some formal resemblance to Clang, but employs
spectrally colored noise textures in addition to tones in order to effect
gradual transitions between noise and pitch. The Three Harmonic Studies
for small orchestra explore, among other concerns, filtering-like operations
on orchestrations of the harmonic series and analogies between pitch and
durational structures.
Beginning shortly after this, Tenney began to explore the use of tape
delay systems in combination with live instruments in order to produce
dense spectra with smaller instrumental forces. His first work in this vein
was Symphony (1975) for woodwind quintet and tape-delay system, but the
composer describes this work as currently “withdrawn” due to dissatisfaction
with its notation. Tenney’s most sophisticated work in this vein is the
elaborate three-voice canon for ensemble and multiple tape-delay systems
entitled Voice(s), dating from 1983. However, the simpler 1978 composition
Saxony for one or more saxophonists and tape-delay system exemplifies the
technical concept underlying these pieces well, and has been repeatedly
recorded.10
The score of Saxony11 fits elegantly on a single page. It allows for
realizations by multiple saxophonists, but it has almost always been

10
Tenney, James. Saxony, on Ulrich Krieger, Walls of Sound, oodiscs 32, compact
disc; also on Henrik Frisk, Inventions of Solitude, Hornblower CD HR 96101,
compact disc; also on David Mott, CRI LP SD 528, vinyl record.
11
The title, literally regarded, refers to a cloth or tapestry woven from a fine variety
of wool.

12
performed by a single performer switching between baritone, tenor, alto, and
soprano saxophones. An available pitch process is again employed drawing
upon pitches in a harmonic series, specified in the score using conventional
notation with deviations in cents from equal temperament indicated above
the notes. The score indicates that it “is intended as the basis for an
improvisation which—though quite free in many respects (rhythmically,
melodically, expressively, and even stylistically)—is totally controlled
harmonically.” The notes indicate that the tape-delay’s delay-time-interval
should be about 12 seconds and that its fade-out time should be long—it’s on
the order of a minute in the recorded versions. Thus, the tape system
repeatedly reintroduces pitches previously played.
The piece is divided into nine “segments”; with successive segments
increasing in nominal length from two minutes to three minutes and then
decreasing symmetrically back to two minutes. The total resulting duration
is 22 minutes, but Tenney indicated that in performance these timings should
be regarded as flexible. Table 1 shows the complete progression of
available pitch sets over the course of the piece, along with their conceptual
fundamentals and nominal starting times. The first four segments of the
score are shown in Figure 3.
Table 1. The sequence of available pitch sets in Saxony.
Segment Nominal Conceptual Available Pitches
Starting Time Fundamental (Harmonics of Conceptual
Fundamental)
1 00’00” E-flat2 1
2 02’00” E-flat2 2-3
3 04’15” E-flat2 4-7
4 06’45” E-flat2 8-15
5 09’30” E-flat1 16-32
6 12’30” E-flat1 8-15
7 15’15” E-flat1 4-7
8 17’45” E-flat1 2-3
9 20’00” E-flat1
End 22’00” E-flat1

13
Figure 3. The first four segments of the score to Saxony. Non-zero
deviations from equal temperament are indicted in cents above the
notes. (Copyright 1978 by Sonic Art Editions. Used by permission of
Smith Publications, 2617 Gwynndale Ave., Baltimore, Maryland 21207.)

The available pitch set ascends the harmonic series above E-flat2 in
stages, ascending to the fourth octave above the fundamental over the course
of 9’30”. Lower pitches become unavailable as higher ones become
available so that the texture, which initially is a steady drone on E-flat2,
becomes increasingly dissonant as the pitch intervals between sounding
tones decrease in size. This is accompanied by an increase in dynamic and
rate of pitch selection. The score stipulates that “as progressively higher
pitches are introduced, there should be a gradual increase not only in the
average dynamic level and tempo ... but of melodic activity and
improvisatory freedom as well, reaching a peak in Segment 5, where
virtually ‘anything goes’ (although an ideal realization would maintain the
same precision of intonation here as elsewhere...).”
In the middle segments of the piece the pitch intervals between
sounding tones are very small intervals located high in the harmonic series,
resulting in vivid difference tones (Moore 1997) becoming audible in the

14
now-unoccupied low register. Since frequency differences between pitches
in a harmonic series are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency of
the series, the pitch of each difference tone will itself correspond to that of
some harmonic (physically sounding or not) in this series, provided that the
intonation of the instrumentalist is accurate.
In Segment 5, the available pitch range does not change. Instead, the
conceptual fundamental of the collection drops to E-flat1, a pitch that is
never physically sounded but which is potentially heard as a difference tone
and residue pitch (Moore 1997). The precipitous drop in the low-frequency
bound of the sounding difference tones and the attendant increase in their
density at 9’30” as the conceptual fundamental plummets are audibly very
striking—even alarming. The available pitch set then begins to descend the
harmonic series of E-flat1 over the course of 12’30”, beginning from the fifth
octave above this fundamental and concluding one octave above it. The
texture returns to its earlier simplicity and calmness as the piece draws to a
close, although one discovers that the ear’s awareness of the constituent
harmonic partials of each tone has been greatly heightened, having heard
their frequencies repeatedly articulated throughout the preceding music.

FROM SPECTRALISM TO HARMONIC PERCEPTION

Also dating from this period of Tenney’s work is the ongoing

sequence of Harmonium pieces. The simplest expression of the concept
underlying the series is to be found in Harmonium #1, which employs a
gradual systematic modulation, one tone at a time, between subsets of
harmonic series based on different fundamentals. A central feature of this
piece is the strong perceptual fusion and relative sensory consonance of the
texture which results whenever the lowest tone constitutes the conceptual
fundamental of the collection—a phenomenon that Tenney describes as “the
sudden making of sense” of harmonic relationships between tones.
Two crucial developments in Tenney’s work have sprung from the
seed of this early sensitivity to harmonic relationships. The first is
conceptual, taking the form of a published semantic history of the concepts
of consonance and dissonance (Tenney 1988) as well as a sophisticated
theory of harmonic perception only a small portion of which has so far seen
publication (Tenney 1993 [1983]; 1987-88 [1983]). The second
development is a body of compositions exploring the perception of harmonic
relationships between tones, including Bridge (1984) for two pianos/eight
hands, in a microtonal tuning system, Koan (1984) for string quartet, “Water

15
on the Mountain...Fire in Heaven” (1985) for six electric guitars, and the
monumental Changes: 64 Studies for 6 Harps from 1985. While these
pieces represent an outgrowth of Tenney’s spectralist work and betray
concerns that are in many ways continuous with it, they represent a complex
conceptual development that cannot be addressed in detail here.12 They
should be recognized, however, as a compositional path away from classic
early spectralist processes, which retains their radical and characteristic
attention to phenomenology and perception without being deflected by such
competing objectives as the desire for a quasi-narrative formal elaboration.

VOICE-MODELING PIECES

One major subcategory of spectral music comprises works involving

so-called “instrumental synthesis,” in which an orchestration is made of the
spectrum or spectrogram of some instrument or other sound source
(Fineberg 2000). Tenney has been active in this area as well, in his own
unique fashion. Three Indigenous Songs (1979), for two piccolos, alto flute,
bassoon or tuba, and two percussionists, was Tenney’s first of three attempts
(so far) at instrumental synthesis of the human voice. The vocal sources
modeled by the music are Tenney’s transcription of a song by the early blues
singer Jaybird Coleman, a transcription of Tenney’s own voice reading Walt
Whitman’s poem “Kosmos,” and finally an earlier Tenney setting of an
Iroquois chant as translated by Jerome Rothenberg. The bassoon or tuba
plays the fundamental of each vowel sound, and the flute and piccolos play
the harmonics of this fundamental that are nearest to the centers of the first
three vocal formants associated with this vowel. The formant frequencies
are taken from tables published in the acoustical literature. Consonants are
articulated by the percussionists using woodblocks (for ‘k’, ‘t’, and ‘p’),
tom-toms with sticks (for ‘g’, ‘d’, and ‘b’), tom-toms with brushes (for ‘th’,
‘f’, and ‘h’), and suspended cymbals (for ‘s’ and ‘sh’).
The preface to the score contains the following passage: “The
perceptual space induced by THREE INDIGENOUS SONGS is meant to be
somewhere near the threshold between music and speech. Occasionally,
perhaps, some semblance of the underlying texts may actually be heard.”
The prospects for actually evoking intelligible utterances by means of
instrumental synthesis will not seem entirely implausible to those who have

12
Interested readers can find detailed analytic information on these compositions in
(Tenney 1987) and (Belet 1990).

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heard examples of so-called “sine wave speech,” in which intelligible speech
is produced using only a few sine waves whose frequencies track those of
the lowest-frequency formant peaks of the utterance to be evoked (Remez et
al., 1981).
Tenney has refined his approach to instrumental synthesis of the voice
in two subsequent compositions: Ain’t I a Woman? (1992), based on a text
by Sojourner Truth, and the first part of Song ‘n’ Dance for Harry Partch
(1999), based on the composer’s own voice reading from Partch’s writings.
True speech intelligibility remains elusive, perhaps in part because these
technically difficult later pieces have yet to be performed at tempo, but the
listener can certainly sustain the impression that he or she is hearing
something like a slowed-down recording of speech, especially in the most
recent work.

LATER WORKS

Tenney’s output of the last three decades has been remarkably varied,
embracing works for percussion, pieces predicated on his theories of formal
perception (Tenney 1988 [1964]; 1980), works inspired by the dissonant
counterpoint of Carl Ruggles, Ruth Crawford, and Charles Seeger, and even
eloquent forays into ragtime music. The largest single category of his
oeuvre, however, is spectralist, and his production in this area continues
unabated to the present day.
Important individual spectralist works include the compendious suite
Glissade (1982) for viola, cello, contrabass, and tape-delay system, Critical
Band13 (1988) for any ten or more sustaining instruments, and Diapason
(1996) for orchestra, which extends the scordatura system that first appeared
in Quintext more than 20 years earlier. Some works appear in sequences,
such as that of Harmonium #1-#7 (1976–2000), or Form 1–5 (all from
1993), or Spectrum 1-8 of (1995–2001). Pieces in the Spectrum series
exhibit some particularly intriguing conceptual developments that combine
elements of Tenney’s previous work in algorithmic composition, formal
perception, harmonic perception, and spectrum-based composition. For
instance, Spectrum 6 (2001) for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, and
cello divides the ensemble into two instrumental groups that each present
algorithmically derived pitch figurations. These groups are distinguished by
independently evolving dynamic and temporal-event densities, but draw

13
An analysis of Critical Band may be found in (Gilmore 1995).

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their pitch materials from a common harmonic series, resulting in a
contrapuntal variety of spectral music.

THE INDIGENOUS NORTH AMERICAN SPECTRALIST TRADITION

Tenney’s work can be regarded as one significant focal point within

the broader network of an indigenous North American spectralist tradition, a
tradition that has to date been largely unacknowledged within the discourse
surrounding spectral music. This tradition, like its European counterpart, has
aesthetic roots in the mid-century collision between musical and scientific
cultures, but also in a more specifically North American musical
phenomenalism rooted in the music and thought of John Cage, and
channeled, among other ways, through late-1960s American process music.
Tenney was perhaps the earliest clear-cut representative of a spectralist
musical current in North America, although over the past four decades a
number of other composers, mostly based in or near New York City, have
produced works relatable in varying degrees to spectralism. They include La
Monte Young (b. 1935), Maryanne Amacher (b. 1943), Phill Niblock (b.
1944), and Glenn Branca (b. 1948) (Gann 1997).
A number of Tenney’s students have also composed substantial bodies
of work in a spectralist vein. Among their ranks are significant composers
such as Larry Polansky (b. 1954) and John Luther Adams (b. 1953).
Polansky’s contrabass quartet of 1975–77 entitled Movement for Lou
Harrison uses natural harmonics on just-tuned strings to achieve an evolving
variety of pitch constellations within a given harmonic series, a technique
that the composer indicates was first suggested to him by Tenney’s Quintext
V: Spectra for Harry Partch (Polansky 1994). Later Polansky compositions
such as Psaltery (1979) for tape, and Horn (1989) for horn and tape, employ
gradual systematic modulations between different harmonic spectra.
John Luther Adams’ large-scale musical theatre work Earth and the
Great Weather (1990-93) includes a collection of pieces for strings and
digital delay14. Several of these employ textures, techniques and tuning
systems related to those found in such Tenney compositions as Quintext V
and Glissade. Indeed, Adams describes them as “an homage to Tenney”
(Adams 1994). Earth and the Great Weather departs from strict
phenomenological concerns in its attention to the evocation of place. Here

14
Score excerpts and further information regarding Adams’ work can be found in
(Feisst 2001).

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spectralist techniques function in part to suggest the austerity and rarefied
temporal sense associated with the Alaskan wilderness where the composer
resides.
From 1976 to 2000 Tenney lived and taught in Toronto, Canada,
where his influence has been felt by a number of young Canadian composers
such as Paul Swoger-Ruston (b. 1968), Josh Thorpe (b. 1975) and the author
(b. 1967).
The influence of Tenney’s music and thought deserves broader
recognition than it has generally received, especially within the discourse
surrounding spectralism. Analytical studies of his work in preparation by
the author and others will hopefully begin to fill the scholarly lacuna, but the
dearth of good performances and recordings of his spectral music remains
vexing. Many of his most important and striking works, including Clang,
Quintext, Glissade, and Changes, await an opportunity to become more
widely known.

REFERENCES

Adams, John Luther. 1994. Essay in booklet accompanying Earth and the
Great Weather, New World Records CD 80459. (Downloadable on
2006-06-25 from the World Wide Web at
http://www.newworldrecords.org/linernotes/80459.pdf )
Belet, Brian. 1990. “An Examination of the Theories and Compositions of
James Tenney, 1982–1985.” Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, 1997.
Cage, John. 1961. “Experimental Music.” In Silence: Lectures and Writings
by John Cage. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 7–12.
Cowell, Henry. 1996 [1930]. New Musical Resources. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
Feisst, Sabine. 2001. “Klanggeographie—Klanggeometrie: Der US-
amerikanishe Komponist John Luther Adams.” MusikTexte 91: 4–13.
Fineberg, Joshua. 2000. “Guide to the Basic Concepts and Techniques of
Spectral Music.” Contemporary Music Review 19: 81–113.
Gann, Kyle. 1995. The Music of Conlon Nancarrow. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
-----. 1997. American Music in the 20th Century. New York: Schirmer Books.
Gilmore, Bob. 1995. “Changing the Metaphor: Ratio Models of Musical
Pitch in the Work of Harry Partch, Ben Johnston, and James Tenney.”
Perspectives of New Music 33: 458–503.

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Moore, Brian C.J. 1997. An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing. San
Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Moore, Brian C.J. and B.R. Glasberg. 1986. “Thresholds for Hearing
Mistuned Partials as Separate Tones in Harmonic Complexes.”
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 80: 479–483.
Remez, R.E., P.E. Rubin, D.B. Pisoni, and T.D. Carrell. 1981. “Speech
Perception Without Traditional Speech Cues.” Science 212: 947–950.
Partch, Harry. 1974 [1949]. Genesis of A Music, 2nd Ed. New York, NY: Da
Capo Press.
Polansky, Larry. 1983. “The Early Works of James Tenney.” Soundings 13:
114–297.
-----. 1994. Essay in booklet accompanying Larry Polansky: Simple
Harmonic Motion. Berkeley, CA: Artifact Records CD ART 1011.
-----. 2003. Essay in booklet accompanying James Tenney: Selected Works
1961–1969, New York, NY: New World Records CD 80570.
(Downloadable on 2006-06-25 from the World Wide Web at
http://www.newworldrecords.org/linernotes/80570.pdf )
Rose, François. 1996. “Introduction to the Pitch organization of French
Spectral Music.” Perspectives of New Music 34: 6–39.
Shepard, Roger N. 1964. “Circularity in Judgements of Relative Pitch.”
Journal of the Acoustical Socitey of America 36: 2346–2353.
Tenney, James C. 1963. “Sound-Generation by Means of a Digital
Computer.” Journal of Music Theory 7: 25–70.
-----. 1969. “Computer Music Experiences, 1961–64.” Electronic Music
Reports #1. Utrecht, The Netherlands: Institute of Sonology.
-----. 1971. For 12 Strings (rising) Baltimore, MD: Sonic Art Editions.
-----. 1972. Clang. Baltimore, MD: Sonic Art Editions.
-----. 1972. Quintext. Baltimore, MD: Sonic Art Editions.
-----. 1974. Spectral CANON for CONLON Nancarrow. Baltimore, MD:
Sonic Art Editions.
-----. 1976. “Spectral CANON for CONLON Nancarrow.” In Pieces, an
Anthology, ed. Michael Byron. Vancouver: Aesthetic Research Centre.
-----. 1978. Saxony. Baltimore, MD: Sonic Art Editions.
-----. 1979. Three Indigenous Songs Baltimore, MD: Sonic Art Editions.
-----. 1987. “About Changes: Sixty-Four Studies for Six Harps.”
Perspectives of New Music 25: 64–87.
-----. 1987-88 [1983]. “John Cage et la théorie de l'harmonie.” Translated
from English by Eric De Visscher. Revue d'Esthétique 13-15: 471-85.

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-----. 1988 [1964]. META + Hodos: A Phenomenology of 20th-Century
Musical Materials and an Approach to Form, 2nd Ed. Hanover, NH:
Frog Peak Music.
-----. 1988. A History of ‘Consonance’ and ‘Dissonance.’ New York, NY:
Excelsior Music Publishing Company.
-----. 1993 [1983]. “John Cage and the Theory of Harmony.” In Writings
about John Cage, ed. Richard Kostelanetz. Ann Arbor, MI: University
of Michigan Press. 136–61.
-----. 2003, 28 August. Interview by the author. Valencia, CA.
Tenney, James C. with Larry Polansky. 1980. “Temporal Gestalt Perception
in Music.” Journal of Music Theory 24: 205–241.

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